The main entrance, viewed from Woodland Walk near 34th Street | Rendering courtesy of University of Pennsylvania and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Hope you’ve gotten your fix of flag football and ultimate frisbee at Hill Field, for starting tomorrow, the University of Pennsylvania open space will be no more. Or rather, it will be significantly reduced, as construction begins on New College House at Hill Field.

The 198,000 sq ft New College House will house 350 undergrads, and like Penn’s other college houses, will have a resident faculty master, a house dean, and two fellows. Now in their 15th year at Penn, the college house configuration differs from typical college dormitories, in that house deans serve as academic advisors and mentors; fellows are faculty or senior administration. As well, all of the houses offer programs, services, and social opportunities for residents, from standard academic advising to music lessons.

Philadelphia’s Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, of Apple Store fame globally and the Liberty Bell Center and forthcoming 15th & Walnut Cheesecake Factory locally, provides the design for the three-walled building that frames a central courtyard. The courtyard, called the Lifted Lawn, slopes a remaining portion of Hill Field’s grass lawn upward toward a plaza and dining pavilion.

New College House at Hill Field, anchored on the corner of 34th & Chestnut, opens outward toward Woodland Walk and has a long street wall along Chestnut Street that reaches toward Drexel’s Chestnut Square just across 33rd Street. The two projects and the services they provide represent the institutional evolution changing the face, and skyline, of University City.

View to Lifted Lawn along Woodland Walk | Rendering courtesy of University of Pennsylvania and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Profile of new dining pavilion | Rendering courtesy of University of Pennsylvania and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

New College House within the greater Penn context | Rendering courtesy of University of Pennsylvania and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

About the author

Bradley Maule is co-editor of the Hidden City Daily and the creator of Philly Skyline. He's a native of Tyrone, Pennsylvania, and he's hung his hat in Shippensburg, Germantown, G-Ho, Fishtown, Portland OR, Brewerytown, and now Mt. Airy. He just can't get into Twitter, but he's way into Instagram @mauleofamerica.

Penn’s College House system, begun 15 years ago, currently has 11 college house residences that form the dynamic shared communities within the larger Penn community. The houses serve as microcosms of the University’s intellectual variety and strengths and provide learning opportunities outside of the conventional classroom.

“In 15 years, the College Houses have become enormously successful, and life in a college house has become a touchstone for generations of student experiences at Penn,” [Amy] Gutmann said.

Looks like another nice project for Upenn. Check out http://www.bergerproperties.org for some additional housing options that i am sure will be more affordable and still able to have some spending money left over.

This looks terrible for Chestnut St. Penn has always treated Chestnut as a back alley on the edge of its campus. This project – right at the intersection of the Penn and Drexel campuses – could have been a way to connect those campuses with a vibrant University City street-scape. But, no. Instead it’s just a big wall dividing the two campuses and further insulating Penn from Drexel. So much for weaving the campus into the urban fabric (not that Penn has ever cared about that, but still.) Chestnut could be a vibrant boulevard that ties together University City. This helps ensure that will never happen. It will continue as a huge highway that cuts through Uni City like a wound.

Speakeasies are all the rage these days. The revival finds its roots in secret cocktail lounges that opened after the 18th Amendment was ratified in 1920. Pennsylvania got a head start and outlawed alcohol in 1919. Amy Cohen takes a look back at Philadelphia during Prohibition on the 100-year anniversary of the ban > more

Like a chain-smoking phoenix rising from the ashes, the infamous Parker Hotel at 13th and Spruce reopened in 2018 after major renovations and decades of decline. Hidden City contributor Stacia Friedman takes a look back at the former transient hotel with memories of her grandparents' pharmacy next door > more